LEONARDO LAWSUIT

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 April 1929, Page 9

LEONARDO LAWSUIT

ACTION AGAINST SIR J. DUVEEN

NEW YORK, Feb. 16.

The suit brought by Mrs. Hahn, of Kansas City, to collect £lOO,OOO damages from Sir Joseph Duveen because he said that her picture of “La Belle Ferroniere” was not a genuine Leonardo da Vinci has now lasted ten days; the end is in sight this week. Sir Joseph Duveen was in the witness box for five days, and maintained his ground that an art expert is entitled to give his opinion (although in the present case it was not intended for publication), or to prevent the sale of a painting for £50,000 to Kansas City Art Institute. In the interests of art and his profession, he said, he had refused the opportunity given to him to retract, and thus prevent a very complicated and expensive law suit, for which, preparations had been made on both sides for eight years. If, as the defendant believed, the Louvre portrait was Da Vinci’s original, he had no alternative, he submitted, but to reject Mrs. Hahn’s picture. So far the case has furnished the American public with much information regarding Old Masters and their histories, and the technique of artists, but the jury of New York businessmen seem perplexed at times, and looked curiously at Judge Black yesterday when he said: “It’s a most interesting case, and I am sure we are all enjoying ourselves immensely.”